2025 in many words

It has become a tradition for me to look at the year that's about to end. I did so in 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014.

So here comes the 2025 edition.

My year in numbers

This year I've been to 3 1/2 conferences. I spent a full week in Utrecht for RustWeek and the Rust Project All-Hands. I went to Paris for EuroRust. I visited Oxidize in Berlin for half a day. And I spent 5 days in Hamburg to attend the 39c3; it's been 10 9 years since my last one.

Just before the work year was over for me I did one (fun) lightning talk. I will upload it and link it from my website later.

Once again I did travel a lot. After getting back from Norway in early January, I made it over to Washington, DC and Florida in February. In March I made it back to Oslo for the Holmenkollen Biathlon World Cup, In May I went to Utrecht, Netherlands. In June I spent a week in eastern France and Switzerland for vacation. In August and September I visited Hamburg and Düsseldorf, and in October Paris. From there I went back to Washington, DC. And the last few days of the year I spent in Hamburg. That's twice to the US, twice to Hamburg, twice to Norway, twice to France and seven times home to my family.

According to my Travelynx log I traveled about 9100 km on trains for a total of 80 hours (and a delay of only 3 1/2 hours). I didn't keep track of the flights.

With this one I wrote 10 blog posts, same number as last year. I'm okay with keeping it at that level.

2025 was also my year of music. I went to 10 concerts of various artists & genres.

• 2x Antilopen Gang (Berlin)
• Juse Ju, Fatoni, Edgar Wasser (Berlin)
• Ed Sheeran (Düsseldorf)
• Querbeat (Berlin)
• Dropkick Murphys (Leipzig)
• Saul Williams (Berlin)
• mclusky (Berlin)
• Monolink (Berlin)
• Fritz Kalkbrenner (Berlin)

In May I bought a record player and since then my vinyl collection grew to 48 records, up from 3 I had from before I could actually listen to them.

My iPhone photo library contains 5365 pictures for 2025. I still don't have that properly sorted (maybe I should host me an Ente) and this time around I don't really have any other photos.

Keeping a private archive of my Mastodon timeline means it's easy to count: 1025 toots over the year, 553 of those as replies to others. Less than the year before.

No dives this year and I'm really sad about that. After the trips in 2024 that's a bummer. Something to improve upon.

I did work out, but I couldn't keep a regular schedule and I don't have good tracking of these. I did keep on playing and coaching handball, with regular training each week and irregular games on the weekends. I dealt with some back problems throughout the year, interfering with intensive training more than I would have liked.

My year in photos and words

This year had a lot of very high ups, but also some big let-downs. Luckily the positive things outweighed those.

After New Years I stayed up in northern Norway for another 2 weeks, before coming back to Germany. However I didn't even go back to Berlin and instead stayed with my family for another week. The weekend we spent together in the snowy Sauerland. Only after that I got back to Berlin.

However it didn't keep me there for long. I made a trip to the US (and had to skip a Dropkick Murphys concert in Berlin for it). Getting there took me a total of 3 days due to weather-related delays and rerouting. Probably the most awful air travel I ever had.

The trip was still worth it to spend time with my partner, celebrate her birthday and stop by Walt Disney World — the latter not a thing on my bucket list until now, but nonetheless a fun experience.

The first weeks of March I then spent in Berlin, before once again going to Norway. Once again for Biathlon. But this time as a volunteer, my sister tagging along, and both my parents attending as spectators. After last year's attendance my sister and I absolutely had to get one of those neat winter jackets and the only way to get one is to take up a volunteer job. We were responsible for the setup of the stadium and start and finish line. That meant long days, but also a look behind the scenes of such an event. And although it was a lot of work we signed up for it again in 2026.

In March I started to have back pain occasionally with no clear cause. I switched out my desk chair, tried to do some back exercise and ensured I did not sit all day and that helped for a while, but didn't solve the issue completely.

In April my partner came to visit me in Berlin and we enjoyed our time together. This was my chance to introduce her to my family over the Easter holidays. These visits are always way too short, but we're making sure to make the best of it.

In May I did buy a record player and started expanding my vinyl collection. That was the month where the back pain returned. Quite severely with a sharp pain just under the shoulder blade, impacting my well-being a lot. I still went to RustWeek in Utrecht and especially the attached Rust Project All-Hands was a great experience.

I started a new (business) adventure together with 2 friends. Definitely fueled by some naivety, but also some other factors this came crashing down just a few weeks later. This was a hard lesson learned.

June was finally the month for vacation. I flew down to Geneva where my partner joined me and we explored the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and the Alsace.

Unfortunately this trip overlapped with both more back pain troubles and the aforementioned crash of our business adventure. This left me with one long-term friendship shattered and money lost. I did learn from it. The back pain went away a couple of days later.

July I spent mostly back in Berlin. I did a short trip home for a big family garden party and visiting a Macbeth play on a cemetery.

Then my parents visited me in Berlin. We went for another theater play here and enjoyed the summery weather.

Throughout August I had several days where the recurring back pain made me unable to work. On the other days though I was able to enjoy the Berlin summer a bit more. In the last days of August my partner came to visit again.

We took that opportunity to travel. First for a short visit in Hamburg. With nothing specific planned we walked a lot, did a guided tour, took the boat around the harbour (the public one, not any of the expensive ferries), met with Markus and had some pretty good dinners.

Next we went to Düsseldorf to go to Ed Sheeran's concert in the big stadium. I would have never gone to his concerts by myself, but in the end it was more than worth it. He's a tremendous musician putting on a really good show on stage.

In October I first had a visit from my sister and niece for an extended weekend, before I flew to Paris for EuroRust. As always the conference flew by with me being busy running around and organizing the stages and helping out where I can. I still got enough time to catch up with some friends and other Rust folks.

From Paris I went straight over the ocean to the US. Of course to visit my partner and spend time with her, but also to attend the wedding of one of her friends. Not even the shortest trip to the US I ever made.

By the end of the month I managed to catch a Dropkick Murphys in Leipzig, that made up for the one I missed in February.

November became the month of concerts and music. Four in total, two by myself and two with Florian, all here in Berlin. My vinyl collection grew by several records (not my fault that all the artists release in November).

With Christmas approaching fast I headed home early and we visited a beautiful small Christmas market in Dortmund.

The real reason for this trip however was the World Women's Handball Championship, with the main round of the group with the German team happening in the Westfalenhalle Dortmund — so just around from my parents. This was our Christmas present for them last year and we went there with the whole family: my parents, siblings and niece & nephew. The whole arena had a captivating atmosphere.

I had to go back to Berlin for a while, before once again returning to my family before Christmas. We spent the days as is tradition: Christmas dinner with salmon & potatoes, gift-giving under tree, and venison & Klöße for dinner on the 1st Christmas day with the whole family again.

I then left home on the 26th already, heading for Hamburg, to attend the Chaos Communication Congress for the first time in 9 years. It was an intense, busy & friendly event and a good ending to a very busy year.

Today I took the train back to Berlin to celebrate the New Year in a bit of a smaller circle with friends.

The Future

I said the same for 2024, but now looking back it's clear that 2025 was just as busy as the year before. But a good kind of busy. I don't see that slow down for next year either.

I already have 6 concert tickets, though all of them in Berlin. I definitely want to keep up the concert tickets, but would like to see some artists in other places too. There's at least 2 conferences I am going to again: RustWeek and EuroRust. And of course the visit to Oslo for the Holmenkollen Biathlon world cup again.

Camille and I now have very concrete plans for her to move over to Germany. That whole undertaking will have more challenges for us, but I remain positive that we'll get that done in the early year. I know it's getting boring and I don't actually want to repeat it. I kinda have to though. If the plans progress as ... planned, a move might happen next year.

Most of what I said about my job is still true 12 months later. Despite what's been my goal for the past year, I didn't get that much done for the performance improvements of Glean. And the new storage backend still hasn't progressed beyond an early prototype. These things remain on the list. There's now a new CEO on top. I don't know how much that will actually change things and I remain skeptical, especially about the plans to trail along the AI hype.

My log shows that all my train trips were limited to the north and west of Germany. Next year I should take the trains further south. Maybe I combine that with concert visits. I would also like to do some dives next year.

2025 had ups and downs. The next year will have those too, but just as this year I hope that the ups will dominate again.

There's many people in my life that made the ups of this year stand out. I'm glad I found Camille and despite the challenges of a long-distance relationship we make things work. I'm excited for 2026.

I'm grateful for all the other friends too. Flaki has to deal with me on most days and still visits me (and bringing the two dogs along). Florian is always around and we manage to regularly meet for beers, concerts, conferences or diving. Other friends in Berlin and elsewhere always stay in contact and we occasionally manage to meet. Visiting my family back home or having them visit me is always fun.